A poem for Tuesday

My favourite reading is the kind where language falters, when it teeters on the edge of the uselessness, becoming a wet paper bag of a thing. I don't know why that is - why I like to see words (after all my favourite thing!) fail and silence expand. I guess maybe because it makes my own failure wielding them a little faultless. Maybe it's because I really believe the greatest moments of beauty lie only in the unutterable.

Lately, words have seemed more hollow than normal. I hold them up to my ear hoping to hear the churn of the sea. I find myself wanting to say things like this: That egg yolks tasted like they did when I was young. I don't think they ever will again. That feels like a monumental loss and I don't know how to tell you. This is by Nick Laird. You can hear him speaking about it here.

Use of Spies
Upright and sleepless,
having watched three bad movies,
I am flying across the ocean to see you.

I am a warrior and nothing will stop me,
although in the event both passport control
and a stoned cabbie from Haiti will give it a go,

but I meant to mention something else.

Just before dinner I woke in mid-air,
opened the shutter and saw the sun rising.
Light swung over the clouds like a boom.

The way it broke continually from blue
to white was beautiful, like some fabled
giant wave that people travel years to catch.